Managed to get some smiles on camera!

What Olivia's been up to...

Well Olivia is sleeping super great at night. We start getting ready for bed around 9:00 and she's generally asleep by 11, and then sleeps until about 6 or so when she wakes up just to eat, then goes back to sleep until around 8:30.

However, she decided since she's sleeping so much at night, 10-15 minute naps during the day are sufficiant. And she loves to be held. She'll let me put her in her little chair thing for a few minutes at a time, but after a while she screams until I pick her up. The best thing ever is my sling. I put her in it and she absolutely loves it, and usually falls alseep. But then when I try to transfer to her the crib she wakes right up. She is smiling a lot, and cooing, and it's just the greatest. I will try to get a little video of it. It's heart melting... at least for the mommy :)

Anyway, yesterday was the 3 year anniversary of when Aaron and I got engaged. Every year we celebrate by going to the Cheesecake Factory. Tonight Aaron's mom is going to babysit. This will be the first time we're leaving her with anyone other than my mom. Granted it's Aaron's mom, so I'm still not very nervous.

We have also been trying to figure out schedules to set a date to bless Olivia. We thought the first Sunday in May would work, but Aaron's parents are going to be out of town, and his brother Douger had something going on, so we talked to the Bishop and he said the next Sunday would be fine, even though it's Mother's Day. But then I just got an email from Douger's wife saying they have something going on that day! But at this point I don't think we're changing it. So we get to go pick out a pretty white dress this week. I'm so excited to see her in her first white dress.

Don't mind me...

Okay so I've been playing with Photobucket and all the pictures we have from NJ (thank you very much Aunt Marita!!)... but I'm obviously having some trouble!! And I've run out of time to try to fix it. So enjoy the previous posts of cut in half pictures! I think if you click on them you can see the full image. Well gotta go... we're off to Christopher Creek for a Young Women's camp out. Seems like we're always on the go :)

mommy and me!

family!

Playing with pictures

"The New Jersey State Bird"

So you have to look closely... but apparently Olivia is truly a Daddy's Girl and also hate the Yankees. My cousins got her a couple Yankee onsies, and my Poppy and husband both despise the Yankees with a passion, so it was fun putting this outfit on Olivia and outraging both of them. However, they had the last laugh when we got these pictures back and noticed Olivia's left hand with only one finger up...

Anyway, the rest of the trip was awesome and wonderful. Hard to say goodbye, as always. We got to spend lots of time with family and everyone fell in love with the cutest baby NJ has ever seen. I owe a shoutout to my Aunt Marita for taking some great family pictures of us! We went to the beach and got some great pictures. I am going to make a slideshow to upload to here as soon as I find a minute. Most of our time was spent parading Olivia all over so she could meet everyone. We did take one night to ourselves, just me and Aaron, and let my mom babysit. We went to this most delicious Italian resturant and it was so wonderful. It's nice being able to leave Olivia with someone you trust so much, and enjoy a night without worrying at all. Don't I sound like such a veteraned mom? My mom also took down my sister's old cradle and set it all up for Olivia. She loved it!! I could feed her, put her in it wide awake and rock her while I fell asleep. She would be perfectly to lay there wide awake as long as she was rocking, and she'd eventually fall asleep on her own, but I'd be asleep before her. This allowed me to get SO much sleep. If she fussed at all and woke me up, all I had to do was give the rocker a little push and silence would follow. So I hoped I could just lay her in her pack and play when we got home and have the same results, but no. She cried and cried unless I was holding her or rocking her somehow. So now I'm trying to convince Aaron that we must buy a cradle, even if she only uses it for another month or two because it was so nice. It was also nice always having someone to hold her and give her lots of attention and change almost every single diaper. (Which by the way was about 90 diapers in 10 days.. and I think I changed her twice!) It's going to be quite the dose of reality settling back into our normal routines.

Frustrated!!

So last night Olivia and I went to sleep at 10:00pm. Beautiful! And O didn't wake up until 4:00am. That's right 6 straight hours. But guess what time I woke up? 2:oo! Thanks to a restricted caller... whoever you are, I know you're out there... And I'm so used to only getting 4 hours of sleep I COULD NOT fall back to sleep. How incredibly frustrating. By the time I was drifting back off to dreamland, you guessed it, she woke up!




But really it's hard to be angry when I'm leaving in 15 minutes for NEW JERSEY!




The excitement can be felt for miles around I'm sure. We are so excited to go show off our bundle of joy for the next 10 days. So wish us luck on the flight!

What I've Learned From My Newborn...

So I decided to make a list of everything I've learned so far in the past four weeks... I expect this list to be ever growing...

1. Sleep is so overraterd.
2. How to best use a small amount of space, (i.e., there's no need for a baby swing when you have a car seat and a glider.)
3. You might want to check the diaper bag for DIAPERS before leaving the house.
4. There really are 24 usable hours in every day.
5. For some unknown reason fresh, clean diapers must be pooped in within 5 minutes of being put on.
6. There is "research" to back almost any claim (it's best to have your baby on a schedule/it's emotionally scarring to try to force your baby on a schedule).
7. Babies have extremely loud digestive systems, and like to show this off at the most opportune moments.
8. I have never been more obsessed with a bodily fluid in my life, than I am with my breastmilk. I'm always worrying that there's not enough/too much/imbalance, etc.
9. Reading random people's blogs that I just follow link to link to link can lead to some very interesting people... and that this a legitimate habit for 2am feedings.
10. And of course I have to end on a sweet note... nothing in the world compares to that first time you hear your baby make a happy little cooing sound, and give you a big ol' smile.

And of course no post is complete without....

Just love her expressions in these pictures.